Oakland Athletics overwhelm Kansas City Royals 8-2 – MLB Update
Jemile Weeks and Gio Gonzalez helped the Oakland Athletics on Thursday, June 16 to beat the Kansas City Royals 8-4 at O.co Coliseum, Oakland.
Oakland completed the 2-1 series coupled with the first series win under interim manager Bob Melvin.
Weeks drove in three runs to contribute in this win. "The first couple of days were shaky from nerves and I just tried to stay confident," said Weeks, hitting .344 (11 for 32) since his June 7 call-up. "I'm just going out there and playing as hard as I can."
Gonzalez, who was suffering from illness, pitched six strong innings to strengthen the Athletics’ defence. "There were a couple of innings where I had to sit down and take a deep breath," Gonzalez said. "My throat is a little sore and I feel a little weak
but I didn't want to show any weakness."
Daric Barton laid a solid foundation for the Athletics with his early single in the second inning that Jeff Francis pitched for the Royals. The inning that saw four hits, Weeks hit a double to deep centre to triple the lead.
Coco Crisp made it 4-0 in the same inning with his single to right. Gonzalez limited the Royals’ offence which seemed hardly comfortable enough in the face of swift fastballs that came their way.
Barton took on Francis once again in the third inning which saw no less than three hits. He grounded out to first to earn a two-run homer, taking his team’s lead to 6-0, making things immensely difficult for the Royals.
Gonzalez, who was visibly not feeling well, allowed the first run in the fifth inning when Melky Cabrera singled to centre to score the first run for the Royals. Jeff Francoeur followed with a single to deep left, bringing the lead down to 6-2.
However, Weeks belted the third run of his game and team’s seventh. Gonzalez then pitched a scoreless sixth inning to maintain the 7-2 lead for the Athletics. Kurt Suzuki, on the other hand, scored the eighth run for the Athletics in the seventh inning by
doubling to left.
The only challenge that came afterwards for the Athletics was in the eighth inning when Wilson Betemit and Brayan Pena scored a single each. Wuertz was then replaced by Grant Balfour who pitched a scoreless ninth inning to seal the 8-4 victory for the Athletics
to also complete the 2-1 series win.
It will be interesting to see how the Athletics carry their winning momentum into their next match-up. The Royals put in a decent performance, but it was not enough to contain the powerful Athletics’ offence.
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